Automatic website generator

ABSTRACT

A system and method for the automatic generation of a website. The website is created upon a user request, where the user provides identification information that is used to search an information database. The information will provide a reference to a code that relates to a template that is used to specify the layout, style and content of the website that is to be generated, and the website is then generated in accordance with the structure of the template, based on content contained in the information database. The user may engage the system and method by means of e-mail or a dedicated website or other such suitable means.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a system and method for website generation.More specifically, the invention relates to a system and method forautomatically generating websites.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

With the ever-increasing proliferation of communication devices andmethods to access the Internet, a growing number of people make use ofthe Internet on a daily basis. Recent statistics indicate that close to900,000,000 people have Internet access in 2005. According to someestimates, this represents a 146% increase from 2000. As more and morepeople gain access to the Internet, the Internet has become aninvaluable tool for those who wish to market their businesses.

Companies or businesses that have a website are able to penetrate amarket beyond their local geographic area, as the website is easilyaccessible worldwide. A website allows a business to provide a potentialcustomer with information pertaining to their business including theplace of business, hours, goods and/or services offered.

A website for a business provides a very simple and effective means topromote their business to an increasing number of people. The Internethas become a tool of first resort for many when researching a business(including the name, address, and business hours).

Establishing a website is often a difficult task for small businesses.Individuals who do not have experience with creating websites andpublishing information on the Internet will typically find it difficultto design and publish their own website. Typically, most business ownersdo not have the technical skills required to establish and maintain awebsite. Also, a great deal of knowledge and effort is required toensure that the website is aesthetically pleasing to view. As a result,a great deal of time and effort, or expenditure is involved in order toestablish even a simple website.

As a result of the difficulty and potential costs associated withestablishing a website, many software applications are available thathelp a user create a website. These programs require the user to selectborders and colors and other style and design elements, as well asspecifying the information that they wish to publish on the particularwebsite. Although such programs assist a user in developing a website, aconsiderable amount of judgment and know how, along with the writing ofthe content, is still required on the part of the user in order todevelop a website with these applications.

As a result of the difficulty and time involved with softwareapplications that aid users in building websites, various tools areavailable on the Internet which purport to allow for the ‘automatic’creation of websites. These tools require the user to select fromvarious styles and layouts of templates that will be used to build theirwebsite. These automatic webpage builders also require the user toprovide the content they wish to appear on the website. While theseautomatic webpage builders do simplify the process by which websites arebuilt, they still require a great deal of user interaction involving thelayout of the website and the specification of content that is to appearon the website. Also, these builders do not take into account the typeof business or enterprise that is related to the business, and as such,the websites that have been created are very generic in nature, as theyare not customized for the particular type of business.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a method and system for the automaticgeneration of websites. Websites are generated for users who engage thesystem and request a website to be generated by providing at least onepiece of identification information. The identification information mayrelate to the address, name, telephone number, or any other suchidentifiers. The identification information is provided by the userthrough various means, including entering the information on a website,including it as part of a URL, providing it in an e-mail, or providingit over the phone. Once the identification information has beenreceived, an information database is searched to determine whether theidentification information is found within the database. The informationdatabase may be stored upon or accessible to a server that receives therequest for a website to be generated. The information database willspecify an industry code or other classification mechanism for eachrecord contained in the information database, which will specify thetype of industry that the particular record is associated with. For eachindustry code that is used, one or more website templates will have beendefined, and stored upon the server. The website template contains oneor more webpages and specifies the layout and type of content that is toappear on a website. If the identification information is located in theinformation database, the respective website template is retrieved andthe record from the information database containing the identificationinformation is also retrieved and used to populate the website template.The population of the website template results in the creation of awebsite, which is then shown to the user for their review, where theuser is able to modify the website that has been automatically created,and where the user may choose to publish the website on the Internet.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the invention and to show more clearly howit may be carried into effect, reference will now be made, by way ofexample only, to the accompanying drawings which show at least oneexemplary embodiment of the invention and in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the components of the website generatorsystem;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the fields contained within anexemplary embodiment of an information database;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating the fields contained within a exemplaryembodiment of a template database;

FIG. 4A is a diagram of one exemplary embodiment of a template used togenerated websites;

FIG. 4B is a diagram of another exemplary embodiment of a template usedto generate websites;

FIG. 4C is a diagram of another exemplary embodiment of a template usedto generate websites;

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating the constituent components of thewebsite generator application; and

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating the steps of a website generatormethod.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Reference is made to FIG. 1, where components of a website generatorsystem 10 are shown in one exemplary embodiment. The system 10 includesone or more communication devices 12, that communicate with one or moreservers 20 through a network 18. The communication device 12 is able tocommunicate with the communication network 18 through various means,including any combination of modems, routers, local area networks (LAN),wide area networks (WAN), phone lines, or any other communicationsystems or devices. The communication network 18 may be the Internet, orany other communication system or means through which data can becommunicated from a communication device 12.

The communication device 12 in an exemplary embodiment includes aninterface 14 and an input means 16. Examples of communication devices 12include, but are not limited to, personal desktop computers, workstation computers, server computers, laptops, mobile/handheld computers,wireless e-mail devices, phones or any other such device that is able toconnect to a network. The interface 14 is typically a graphical displaydevice such as a monitor, and includes any means by which text may bedisplayed or communicated to a user. The input means 16 allow foralphanumeric character entry.

The server 20 is a server type computer. The server 20 is connected tothe communication network 18. The system 10, in this exemplaryembodiment, has been described with reference to one server 20, however,it should be noted that one or more servers 20 may be employed in thesystem 10. The server 20, has resident upon it, or accessible to it, awebsite generation software application. The term website refers to acollection of one or more web pages, which may optionally be linkedtogether using hypertext or other links. The term web page refers todata including graphical or text information.

The server 20, in one exemplary embodiment, has stored upon it, oraccessible to it, an information database 25, a template database 30, awebsite database 35, and a website creator application 40.

Reference is now made to FIG. 2, which illustrates the informationdatabase 25 in further detail. In system 10, the information database 25is used to store data relating to business entities. Each businessentity has a record in the information database 25. Each entry in theinformation database 25 includes fields corresponding to a directorylisting for a business or other entity. In an exemplary embodiment, eachrecord includes a company name field 100, an address field 105, atelephone number field 110, a company information field 115, an industrycode field 120, a contact person field 125, a fax number field 130, anemail address field 135, and an other information field 140. In thisexemplary embodiment, each entry in the information database 25 includesinformation similar to a “yellow pages” directory listing. It is notnecessary that each record contain data for every particular field.

The fields are used to record information about each business asdescribed in the table below.

Field Contents Company name field 100 The name of the business. Addressfield 105 The street address of the business. Telephone number field 110The telephone number of the business. Company information field 115 Adescription of the product or services offered by the business. Industrycode field 120 Industry classification code describing the products orservices offered by the business. Contact person field 125 The name ofthe contact for the business. Fax number field 130 The fax number of thebusiness. Email address field 135 The email address associated with thebusiness. Other information field 140 May store any other informationwith respect to the entry.

The data in the industry code field 120 may be based on one or morestandardized business activity classification systems. For example, onesuch system is the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC), which hasbeen developed to classify businesses according to the activities theyare engaged in. The SIC was designed to cover the entire field ofbusiness activities by defining industries in accordance with thecomposition and structure of the economy. The SIC employs a four digitcode that is used to identify the primary activity a business is engagedin. Recently, due to changes in the economy, other industryclassification systems have been introduced to deal with the increasingnumber of areas or sectors that businesses may be engaged in. Forexample, the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), is asix digit code that allows for classifications to be assigned forbusinesses that are taking part in newer industries. It should beunderstood, that SIC and NAICS are only two examples of industryclassification systems that may be used in the website generation system10, as any classification system that allows for entries to be groupedby category may be used. Therefore, depending on the industryclassification system that is being employed, the industry code field120 contain codes representative of the sector to which the businessrelates. The operator of a system according to the present invention maydefine and use its own industry code system or any other suitableclassification method.

The information database 25 in an exemplary embodiment must contain foreach record, information from the industry code field 120, andinformation from at least one field from among the company name field100, the address field 105, the telephone number field 110, the faxnumber field 130, or the email address field 135. The informationdatabase 25 may include records for businesses located in one or moregeographic regions.

The information database 25 may have its records for each businesspopulated by various means. In one embodiment, the information for therecords may be received directly from the businesses, in anotherembodiment the information may be manually compiled, or received fromthird parties.

In another embodiment, the information database 25 may include recordsrelating to individuals or other entities or to any combination ofentities. This exemplary embodiment has been described with reference towebsites being generated for businesses, however, it should be notedthat as the information database 25 may be used to store records forvarious types of entities, websites may therefore be automaticallygenerated for non-business entities. When the information database 25contains records other than business entries, other suitableclassification systems may be used to specify relations betweentemplates and records in the information database 25.

All of the records in the information database 25 may be managed by anadministrator. Alternatively, a business or other entity may bepermitted to edit its own record in the information database 25. Theinformation database 25 may be managed by others including sales agents,third party agents, or any other suitable individual, or any combinationof these.

Reference is made to FIG. 3, which illustrates the fields of anexemplary embodiment of a template reference database 30. In anexemplary embodiment, the template reference database 30 comprises anindustry code field 150, a keyword field 155 and a template informationfield 160.

The industry code field 150 contains listings of all the codes that areassociated with the particular industry classification system that isused in the web page generation system 10. Each industry code entry mayreference one or more sets of keywords as contained in the keywordsfield 155. The template information field 160 contains for each entry inthe industry code field 150, a reference to one or more websitetemplates. The keywords field 155 may contain for each industry code,one or more sets of keywords, which would allow for more specifictemplates to be associated with the particular industry code. Forexample, if the industry code relates to automobile sales then sets ofkeywords may be associated with particular makes of automobiles, whichwould then allow less generic templates to be used when generating awebsite. The template information field 160 contain for each entry inthe industry code field 150, a reference to one or more websitetemplates. The fields of the template database 30 are used to recordinformation about each business as described in the table below.

Field Contents Industry code field 150 Listing of all the codes for theindustry classification system that is used. Keyword field 155 Areference to various keywords which may be associated with a particulartemplate. Template information field 160 A reference to one or morewebsite templates that are associated with the particular industry code.

In the website generation system 10, one or more website templates aredefined. The website templates correspond to different types of websitesthat may be generated. The website templates allow websites to begenerated which may be comprised of text, fields, graphics, images,formulas, scripts, HTML code, Java Script, Flash Pages, Flash Animationand any other functionality. One or more website templates may bedesigned for each industry code that is employed in the industryclassification system, or one website template may be associated withmore than one industry code. The website templates are designed torelate to the particular industry code they correspond with. Forexample, website templates may have associated with them graphics orpictures that relate to the particular class of goods and or servicesassociated with the particular industry code. In the website generationsystem 10, website templates are customized for the various industrycodes that are employed. In one exemplary embodiment, website templatesare comprised of HTML codes and graphic images.

Reference is now made to FIGS. 4A, 4B and 4C, where exemplaryembodiments of website templates are shown in greater detail. FIG. 4A,FIG. 4B and FIG. 4C all illustrate embodiments of one page websitetemplates. The website templates may be comprised of one or morewebpages. With respect to FIG. 4A, a website template 200 comprises alogo field 205, a company name field 210, a partner logo field 215, apicture field 220, a company information field 225, a contactinformation field 230, a contact business field 235, a banner field 240,and a copyright notice field 245.

The logo field 205 allows for a logo, or other graphical image that isassociated with the business to be displayed. The company name field 210allows the business name to be displayed on the website. The partnerlogo field 215 is used to display the logos of any other entity withwhich the business is associated. For example, some businesses on theirwebsites place information with respect to the credit card brands theyare affiliated with (i.e. Visa™, Mastercard™, American Express™). Thepicture field 220 may be used for a picture or graphic that isassociated with the business. The company information field 225 providesa description of the goods and/or services that are offered by theparticular business. The contact information field 230 may contain, ifapplicable, any of the following information: the place of business, thetelephone number, e-mail address, hours of operation, the contact personand any other information that allows for contact to be made with thebusiness. The contact field 235 may comprise a script that is executedto allow for a user of a website to enter a message they wish to be sentto the business. Specifically, if a website that has been generatedincludes a contact field 235, a user is able to send a message to thebusiness by specifying an optional subject in a subject field 237,writing the message in the message field 238, and then sending themessage by clicking on a send icon 239. The user is able to enter anymessage they desire and upon the user sending the message, the messageis transmitted to the business. The message may be transmitted to thebusiness by means of an e-mail, based on an e-mail address that isassociated with the business as stored in the email address field 135 ofthe information database 25. The banner field 240 is used to displayupon the website banner type advertising. A copyright notice field 245displays a copyright notice which states that the content that isdisplayed on the website is protected by copyright and is owned by thebusiness or other entity with which the website is associated.

Reference is now made to FIG. 4B, where another exemplary embodiment ofa website template is shown. The website template 260 shown in FIG. 4Bhas a different layout of the fields than were shown in FIG. 4A.Reference is now made to FIG. 4C, where another embodiment of a websitetemplate is shown. The website template 270 as shown in FIG. 4C, has thesame fields as were shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B respectively, with theexception of the logo field 205. The website template 270 in FIG. 4Calso contains a picture/map field 250. The picture/map field 250 is usedto provide either a graphical image or picture that is to be associatedwith the business, or a map that provides directions to the place ofbusiness. The website templates that have been described herein, havebeen described for purposes of example only, as the templates maycontain various fields and functionality, as well as multiple links tothe other websites and web pages.

The website generation system 10, has installed upon or accessible tothe server 20, a website generator application 40. Reference is made toFIG. 5, where the constituent components of the website generatorapplication 40 are shown. The website generator application 40 in oneexemplary embodiment, is comprised of a template creation module 42, aninterface module 44 and a rendering module 46. The template creationmodule 42, allows for website templates, examples of which have beenshown with respect to FIG. 4A-4C to be created, and stored upon theserver 20. The interface module 44, receives the request for a websiteto be generated and the information required to generate the website.The rendering module 46 receives input from the interface module 44, andaccesses the information database 25 and the template database 35, andgenerates a website.

Reference is now made to FIG. 6, where the steps of a website generationmethod 300 are shown. The website generation method 300 when undertakenresults in the automatic creation of a website. This embodiment of thewebsite generation method 300 is described with respect to the creationof websites for businesses. However, as has been described, the websitegeneration method 300 may be used to generate websites for non-businessentities. The website generation method 300, may be used toautomatically generate websites where the information for the website isfound in a database, similar to the information database 25, and can beaccessed by the website generator application 40. A user who wishes toengage the website generation system 10 to automatically generate awebsite, will do so through using a communication device 12, which isable to communicate with the server 20 by means of a communicationnetwork 18.

Website generation method 300 begins at step 305. At step 305, the useraccesses system 10 and chooses to create a website. The user accessesthe system 10 in one embodiment by visiting a website. The method asdescribed here may be engaged by visiting a website that provides thewebsite generation functionality. Alternatively, the user may access thesystem 10 by means of sending an e-mail, to an e-mail address that isassociated with the automatic website generation method 300. The system10 of the present invention, may also be accessed by other means, suchas through use of a phone, and calling a specific phone number.

Method 300 then proceeds to step 310, where the user providesidentification information. The user provides to the server 20, any onepiece of information, which is unique to the business such as thebusiness name, the address, the telephone number, fax number, emailaddress or any other such information. Information that may be unique tothe business, is referred to as identification information. Thisidentification information is provided to the website generatorapplication 40, and more specifically the interface module 44, throughvarious means, including entry of the information on a website, sendingthe identification information in an e-mail as the subject line, in thetext body, or providing the identification information over the phonethrough key entry and automated voice prompts. In an exemplaryembodiment, if the user is engaging the website generation method bymeans of a website, the user may enter the identification information aspart of the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) address. For example, if theidentifier associated with a business is the phone number, i.e.555-555-1212, the URL may be entered as www.domain.com/5555551212. Theidentifier may be combined with the URL and the method may be engaged inthis manner. Alternatively, the website may contain functionality, wherethe identification information may be entered on the website. Upon theuser providing at least one piece of identification information, method300 proceeds to step 315. Depending on the communication device the userchooses to engage the system with, steps 305 and 310 may be combined. Asan example, where the user engages the method by using email, the usersends the message to the specified email address containing theidentifier information in one email. Also, when the user engages themethod by means of the website, where the identified information isincluded as part of a URL, the identifier information is entered as partof a URL that is associated with the method. Therefore, by entering awebsite address (that contains the identifier information) the methodautomatically generates a website.

At step 315, the website generator application 40 receives theidentification information and provides the identification informationas an input parameter to the rendering module 46.

Method 300 then proceeds to step 320, where the information database 25is searched to determine whether any record contains the identificationinformation that was provided by the user. If the identificationinformation that has been provided is not unique, method 300 thenproceeds to step 325. If the search of the information database 25returns one unique entry that contains the identification information,method 300 then proceeds to step 345. If the search of the informationdatabase 25 does not return any entries that match the identificationinformation, then method 300 proceeds to step 335.

If at step 320, multiple entries containing the identificationinformation were located, method 300 then proceeds to step 325, wherethe list of multiple entries are communicated to the user. The user isthen asked to select the entry from among the list of multiple entriespresented for which they wish the website to be created. The user thenselects the entry they wish a website to be created for at step 340, andmethod 300 then proceeds to step 345.

Method 300 proceeds to step 335, if it is determined that no entrieswere located that correspond with the identification informationprovided by the user. At step 335, the user is presented with the optionof providing additional identification information that would allow theinformation database 25 to be searched again.

If at step 320, one unique entry was located in the information database25, method 300 proceeds to step 345. At step 345, the informationdatabase 25 is accessed, and more specifically the industry code field120 is accessed to determine the industry code that is associated withthe particular entry. The industry code field 120 for the particularentry provides to the rendering module 46, the industry code that isassociated with the industrial classification system that is employed.The industry code associated with the particular entry is then used tosearch the template database 30. The template database 30 as describedabove, specifies for each industry code used in the particularindustrial classification system, a website template to be used whengenerating the website. At step 345, the template database is searchedto determine the appropriate template that is to be used, as isindicated by information provided in the template information field 155

Method 300 then proceeds to step 350, where the template is populatedbased on information contained in the information database 25. The datarequired to populate the fields of the template is extracted from theinformation database 25. Based on the fields contained in the specifictemplate that is being employed, data is retrieved from the informationdatabase 25. Upon the population of the respective template fields withinformation from the information database 25, method 300 may proceed tooptional step 355.

Method 300 then proceeds to step 355, if there remain template fields tobe populated that require information from other than the informationdatabase 25. Step 355 is used to populate template fields whererequired, that do not require further information from the user, such asthe automatic generation of maps, or a counter mechanism which tracksthe number of hits on a website for example. A map may be generated bythe rendering module 46 by making use of the address as found in theinformation database 25, and providing that information to a mapcreation service such as those that are available on the Internet (i.e.mapquest™). Upon the completion of optional step 355, or step 350 ifstep 355 has not been required, a website will have been generated,where the user has been required to provide only one piece of uniqueidentification information to generate the entire website.

Method 300 then proceeds to step 360, where the website that has beengenerated is shown to the user. In step 360, the generated website willbe sent to the user. The generated website may be sent to the userthrough various means, including as images of the webpages that comprisethe website, or as a link to a URL that hosts the created website. TheURL that is provided to the user may be a dedicated URL, or a temporaryURL that is used to allow the user to view the website that has beencreated

Upon the user being shown the website in step 360, the user is presentedwith various options in step 365. At step 365, the user may chose toeither accept the website as has been generated, or to modify thewebsite that has been created. If the user selects the option ofmodifying the website, method 300 proceeds to step 370. If the useraccepts the content and layout of the website, method 300 proceeds tostep 375.

If at step 365, the user selects the option of modifying the websitethat has been generated, the user is provided a URL, whereinfunctionality is present to allow modifications to the generatedwebsite. For example, the user is able to insert and or edit text,change background colors, fonts and font sizes, graphics/pictures, andlinks to other websites. Upon the user completing any modification ofthe generated website, method 300 proceeds to step 375.

Method 300 proceeds to step 375, when the user at step 365 does notrequire modifications to be made, or where at step 370 modificationshave been made to the website. At step 375, the user is presented withthe option of having the website published on the Internet. If the userchooses to have the website published, method 300 proceeds to step 380wherein the generated website is published. At step 375, the user isalso presented with the option of having the website published on aspecific domain that is specified by the user, registering a specificdomain name, or for the generated website to be published on a domainassociated with the server. If the user selects to have the generatedwebsite published, the website generator application 40 then causes thegenerated website to be published on the Internet.

In alternative embodiments of method 300, the user may be provided withthe option of selecting between multiple templates presented to them,before the website is generated. Also, in alternative embodiments,website generation method 300 may be engaged by means of a phone, wherea user requests the generation of a website by means of phone commandsin response to voice prompts.

It should be understood that the various modifications can be made tothe embodiments described and illustrated herein, without departing fromthe invention, the scope of which is defined in the appended claims.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method for automatically generating awebsite, the method comprising: (a) receiving, at a server, a request togenerate the website, the request comprising at least one uniqueidentifier; and (b) operating at least one processor to generate thewebsite; the at least one processor being in communication with theserver and configured to: (i) identify at least one website templatefrom a plurality of website templates stored in a storage module basedon the request; and (ii) populate one or more template fields of the atleast one website template with data associated with the at least oneunique identifier; wherein operating the at least one processor togenerate the website further comprises: associating each websitetemplate in the plurality of website templates with at least oneclassification code from a plurality of classification codes, eachclassification code of the plurality of classification codes correspondsto a different category; determining a classification code correspondingto the request and identifying the at least one website template byselecting one or more website templates associated with theclassification code.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining aclassification code corresponding to the request comprises: locating atleast one data entry in the storage module based on the request, thestorage module comprises a plurality of data entries; and retrieving theclassification code from the at least one data entry.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the plurality of classification codes is associatedwith a classification system and the classification system allows foreach template to be grouped by at least one category.
 4. The method ofclaim 3, wherein operating the at least one processor to generate thewebsite further comprises defining the classification system.
 5. Themethod of claim 3, wherein the classification system is selected fromthe group consisting of a Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)System and a North American Industry Classification System.
 6. A methodfor the automatic generation of a website, the method comprising:receiving from a communication device a request to generate a websiteand one or more identification information; searching an informationdatabase comprising one or more entries for a particular entrycontaining the identification information, each of the one or moreentries comprising a classification code for grouping entries in theinformation database by category, and each classification codereferencing one or more website templates; determining the websitetemplate to be used for generating the website based on theclassification code included in the particular entry in the informationdatabase containing the identification information; and populating oneor more template fields of the website template with information fromthe particular entry in the information database containing theidentification information to generate the website.